


Weight of the World on my Shoulder

by nihonlove



Series: Saviour AU [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Armin is Erwin's Son, Gen, M/M, World Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-28
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1537766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihonlove/pseuds/nihonlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first 14 years of his life Eren Jaeger was, all things considered, a fairly normal boy. Then one day, he is whisked to a whole new world, where monsters called the Titans roam the lands and people have been forced to take refuge inside tall Walls, kept inside like birds in a cage. He's told he's to be their saviour, their salvation, and defeating the Titans might be the only way he can go home again...but how can he, a mere boy, manage what humanity was failed to accomplish for over a hundred years?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU I've been thinking about for a while. It was loosely inspired by the anime Kyou Kara Maou. My beta and I affectionately call it the "Saviour AU".
> 
> The title of this comes from The Black Eyed Peas song "Where is the Love?", which I feel like describes this AU pretty well. Or the Attack on Titan universe in general, really.
> 
> Special thanks to ShadowFaeyre for beta-reading, for encouragement and for all her help in general, be it listening to me talk about this or offering ideas. As usual, this wouldn't be half the thing it is without you, love.

For the first 14 years of his life, everyone who knew him could pretty much agree that Eren Jaeger was, all things considered, a fairly normal boy.

He had been born in Munich, Germany to Carla, a housewife and Grisha , a fairly successful doctor. The family had immigrated to USA when Eren had been four, as Grisha had been called called to work there on a project. Eren had grown up in a nice suburban area in Boston, had learned English fairly easily alongside his original German, had started attending a decent school and liked to play football and baseball in his free time.

The only somewhat remarkable thing about Eren was perhaps that, despite being a fairly athletic young man who didn’t do badly in school and couldn’t be described as unattractive, he didn’t really get along with his peers all that well. As far as anyone could tell, Eren had never really had any real, true friends. There was just something about him that made people in general avoid him for the most part. Even his teammates in sports didn’t seem to place their complete faith and trust in him. 

The reason for this became fairly obvious to anyone who had to interact or see Eren on a regular basis – the boy had a rather explosive temper.

Eren seemed to get into a fight of some kind on a nearly weekly basis. Sometimes a real fight didn’t manage to break out if an adult or an older student managed to get involved in time, but regardless there was much holding-of-collars, anger, yelling and aggression. So far, Eren had almost miraculously managed to avoid breaking a limb – his own or someone else’s – but there tended to be a lot of bruises, bleeding and sprained wrists. It seemed like Eren had never quite developed that inner voice that tells most people us not to react to every little impulse of anger they experience in their daily lives; the one they all need to gain for themselves to get through adult life. He just seemed to pick fights over the littlest things, such as when he found out someone had written something on the walls of the boys’ bathroom, or hadn’t thanked the lunch lady for the meal or had made the nerdy kid in class trip and drop all his books.

What they couldn’t see, however, was what Eren saw. He knew that it would be some poor underpaid man or woman, probably trying to feed three children by working two or even three jobs, who would have to clean up that bathroom afterwards. The lunch ladies were immigrants who couldn’t get a better job because their English was still shaky, and for that they had to serve all these ungrateful and rude brats every week day, just because they had dared to reach for the age-old American Dream. Eren had caught that nerdy kid crying in the bathroom more than once because he couldn’t deal with the stress of being at school, surrounded by all these judgemental people every day.

Eren’s mother had instilled in him from a very young age a very strong sense of justice and the need to stand up for the weak, to defend them. Maybe for this reason, Carla could never bring herself to punish her son too harshly whenever Eren got into a fight and explained why he had started it in the first place. Although she hoped Eren wouldn’t try to deal with the problems of society in the way he did, she was at least relieved he was doing it in order to preach justice rather than just raging on pointlessly as everyone assumed. It was almost as if he wanted to beat those in the wrong up so that they could learn to act better and not do those same mistakes again. If only not to get beat up.

It might’ve worked better if Eren actually managed to win even half the fights he got into. But most of the time what ended up actually happening was that others ganged up on him and he was just unable to stand his ground against so many. But in spite of this, he never gave up fighting until someone else made him, either by pulling him away from the fight or by beating him up so badly that he fell unconscious.

If he’d only known what his tendency to get into fights would cause, maybe he would’ve thought twice about getting into them so often…


	2. Chapter One

The day honestly began like any other in Eren’s life. It was one of the last days of the summer holidays, just before Eren would start a new grade. That day, the weather was lovely. The sun was shining, the sky was clear and the wind that blew was gentle and warm. With such a wonderful day breaking in front of him, Eren found it too nice to stay cooped up inside all day, especially since soon enough he’d be stuck at school all days long until the next holiday. He thus decided to go on a small bike ride to make the most of his last bits of freedom.

And so, after breakfast, he grabbed his keys and said bye to his mother, caving in to her demands of wearing a helmet while he biked. However, in reality he took it off as soon as he turned the corner away from his house where she would no longer be able to see him. The soft wind blew through his thick, dark brown hair, messing it up (not that it had been very neat in the first place), and giving him a wonderful sense of liberty. He could almost imagine he was flying when he biked like this. It was indeed a marvellous way to spend a day like this one.

He decided to ride to the nearby park, not able to come up with a more specific location to bike to. He left his bike outside the park, making sure to lock it properly, before stepping on the little curling sand paths that snaked through the entire place. The tree branches above him hummed in the wind and a few leaves began to fly through the air. The sight was beautiful, but a bit depressing because it seemed to say that the seasons were indeed changing and that another summer had passed.

He had been idly walking around without really thinking about anything of importance, when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. A group of boys were gathered by a tree near the park pond he was just about to pass. Upon taking a closer look, he realised he recognised most of them – including the boy whose back was pressed against the tree trunk. It was Kenny, the bullied boy he’d caught crying in the bathroom. The rest of the boys were all bigger than him and seemed to be leaning over him ominously. That was all Eren needed to see and know to get involved, and he began to run over the lawn towards them.

“You guys, what the hell are you doing?!” He screeched as he ran, adrenaline beginning to pump through his veins, his heart pulsing it through his whole body. There was nothing stopping him from his goal now. “Leave him alone!”

The bigger boys turned around to see Eren, and Kenny started to look a little bit less scared than before. “If it isn’t Jaeger. Back for more? Aren’t you getting tired of getting your ass kicked yet?”

“The only ass that will be kicked is yours!” Eren yelled as he threw the first hit on the nearest boy. He dodged, and another launched a kick to Eren’s knees from the back when he was distracted. Eren turned, and this time raised both his fist and his foot at the same time. The bully behind him hadn’t seen that coming and Eren managed to kick him on the side, right where the last of his ribs were located. Eren was proud to see the bigger boy wince in pain; he hadn’t held back at all in his kick, as he never did. He might’ve even managed to fracture the other’s rib.

All the while, Kenny looked on through his tears and skewed glasses, but then seemed to realise that the bullies’ attention was no longer on him. Instead, it was now focused entirely on Eren. He slowly and sneakily ducked to the other side of the tree, and when he was safely away from the bullies’ line of sight, he started to run.

“Wha…? Hey guys, the nerd is getting away!” One of the bullies noted soon enough after, but by then Kenny was nearly out of the park and in the public eye, where even if they caught him, they’d get in trouble if they tried anything. Eren silently cheered for himself and for Kenny. For once, justice prevailed. He was sure Kenny was going to call for help too. No way he’d leave his saviour here alone, right?

One of the bullies, the one whom Eren had managed to kick, growled at him. “Getting’ real tired of your shit, Jaeger. Thanks to you, our prey got away.”

“He’s not prey and you are certainly not the hunters.” Eren snarled. “You’re nothing more than shit-on-the-bottom-of-my-shoe bullies.”

The bigger boy’s eye twitched. “Shut up!”

He attempted to swing a fist at Eren, but the brunet managed to dodge. However, he realised he had ended up in a rather bad situation. His back was against the tree trunk, much like Kenny’s had been just moments before, and on top of that, the bullies were beginning to gang up on him from all sides. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to turn in order to dodge attacks. But Eren refused to give up. He held up his fists in a battle stance, prepared to fight until his last breath, as always.

The bullies weren’t even trying to hurt him now, though. A smirk spread over the face of the one he’d kicked. “Hold his limbs. Let’s teach him a little… _wet_ lesson, shall we.”

Sickening smirks overcame the rest of the bullies’ faces as well, and suddenly, Eren found himself being lifted. The bullies were holding his arms and his legs and beginning to carry him towards the little pond. Eren thrashed violently, using all of this strength to try and kick and punch the ones holding him, and he was rather sure he was even managing to cause some of them quite a bit of pain, but not enough for them to put him down apparently.

“Let me go you-!” He screeched. “You jerks!”

“Not a chance.” The one he’d kicked said, smirk never leaving his face. “Like I said, I’m startin’ to get real tired of your shit. Maybe this’ll teach you to respect those who are stronger than you.”

They reached the pond, and the bullies combined their strengths to force Eren down on his knees. Eren struggled more than ever now that they were in a position where it might be harder for them to hold him still, but it was no use. He quickly realised what they were going to do and thrashed with all his might, but the bullies just sat on his legs and back, holding him practically immobile, his head just above the water’s surface.

“Have a nice head-swim, Jaeger.” The head bully said before pushing his head under the water.

Survival instinct must’ve kicked in, because Eren was fairly sure he had managed to lift at least one bully off him before the sharp pain of what must’ve been a kick hit the back of his head and everything went dark.

 

\--

 

Based on what he remembered had happened, Eren had fully expected to wake up at a hospital. At his home if he was lucky. Possibly in a ditch somewhere if he was incredibly unfortunate. But instead, he seemed to wake up somewhere he had least expected to end up at: in a middle of a grassy field.

Wind blew through, rustling the grass and the branches of the few lonely trees nearby, as well as Eren’s hair. The long grass strands tickled his cheeks and arms where they were bare and not covered by his half-length sleeved zip-up hoodie. Birds were singing. Eren’s head was very misty and the back of it still hurt a little. He was lying on the ground, but thankfully it was a fairly soft ground and didn’t cause him further pain.

“Where the hell am I…?” Eren murmured to himself. He slowly began to sit up, trying to gather his thoughts. Had the bullies taken him somewhere after knocking him unconscious? But as far as he could see, there were no houses in any distance that could be seen by bare eye. The place was honestly a rather stark contrast to the bustling city life Eren was used to. No people anywhere, no cars, no noise. The field was almost eerily quiet actually, aside from the wind rustling the few lone trees in the distance and the birds’ singing. To have found a desolated place like this in Boston must’ve taken hours to drive to. And yet, it seemed like the time of the day wasn’t much different, perhaps a couple of hours later, judging by the sun. Or was it the next day? Had he been unconscious for over 24 hours? His parents must be worried sick if that was the case…

Well, there wasn’t much use wondering about that now. The thing Eren needed to do first was to try and find someone who could tell him where he was and perhaps let him use a phone to call his parents. He cursed himself for not having brought a cell phone, having not thought of needing it since he had been only planning on touring the neighbourhood a little. Not that it probably would’ve mattered anyway, as the bullies probably would’ve just taken it from him and sold it in a street corner or something…

Eren began to walk, not really paying mind into which direction. He was just hoping to end up somewhere with signs of human life.

He hadn’t been walking long when he began to see a vague shape of an approaching human in the distance. They seemed to be headed his way, and running on top of that! A hopeful smile spread over Eren’s face; maybe they were jogging here and could help him find his way back to the city!

He started speeding up himself, waving his hand and yelling out: “Hey! Excuse me! I’m lost, could you help me?” There was no answer from the other person. Maybe they hadn’t heard him? But they didn’t seem to be that far…

“Excuse me!” Eren shouted louder. He was trying to make out what kinds of clothes the other person was wearing, but all he could make out was skin colour. Maybe skin-coloured clothes were some sort of new fashion statement? A new line of exercise clothes, perhaps?

He didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. When there was little to nowhere to run. Little to nowhere to escape, to be safe. He didn’t realise that what was approaching him wasn’t another human until it was only a short distance away and Eren realised that it was far too tall, and far too _naked_ to be human. No, what was approaching him was some kind of a humanoid-looking, 10 meter tall monster that was naked as a new-born baby and running right towards him with heavily thumping steps, face seemingly frozen in a permanent, very eerie-looking smile.

Eren didn’t know what that thing was and what it was doing here, but at that moment he couldn’t bring himself to care either. It was clearly something unnatural, a monster, and right when he realised that, he also realised that he should most likely get away from it. He didn’t know why, but something in his gut told him that the worst that thing could do to him wouldn’t be just running him over. And Eren always trusted his gut.

He turned on his heel and now started to run much faster than before, survival instincts kicking in again. He tried to scout the area with his eyes, attempting to find someplace he could escape to, but all he could see was plain land with a few trees, like before. The thumping footsteps were coming closer and closer and when he turned to look he could see that the thing was indeed getting nearer. There was no way Eren could outrun it, not with the massive difference in the length of their legs. He was done for…!

‘I wish I’d helped Mom out more around the house instead of complaining all the time. I wish I’d told her I appreciated her more.’ Eren thought as tears of panic started to well up in his eyes. ‘I wish I’d been easier on Dad when he had to work a lot and couldn’t come to my games. I wish I’d told him I was proud of his skills as a doctor…!’

Eren turned to look behind himself again. The creature was really close now. He stopped running and turned around properly. At least he could try and die with a little dignity, instead of running like a coward, even if there was no one around to see him do it.

However, just as he had finished that train of thought, something seemed to flash through the air. It was like an enormous wheel, whisking through the air, glittering in the noon sun. It lashed behind the monster, and had apparently cut it rather deep somewhere there because Eren saw a lot blood coming from around the back of its neck. The next thing he knew was that the monster was starting to fall down, and he had to get out of the way of its massive body if he didn’t want to be crushed. Another thing he realised was that he could hear the sound of running again. But this didn’t sound similar to the running he’d heard from the monster. No, these steps were lighter, but moving as a mass, as if…

He turned to the direction the large wheel had come from and suddenly saw, to his huge surprise, a number of people riding towards him on horses, all of them wearing the same type of deep green, waist-long cloak buttoned at the left shoulder. The one in the lead of the group, a blond-haired, blue-eyed man, was holding the reigns of a spare horse in his hand.

“I can’t believe you actually _were_ here, you little shit.” Eren heard a voice from his right and turned to look at the monster’s corpse again. On top of it there stood a man with short black hair and sharp eyes, back impossibly straight and head held up high, looking down at Eren as if he was merely an insect he could just crush under his thumb if he felt like it. He was wearing the same green cloak as everyone else and Eren realised the spare horse must belong to him. He also realised, after noticing the two sharp-looking blades resembling large box-cutters which the man with was holding, that he had likely been that giant wheel from before. Somehow, he had managed to move through the air and kill that monster. Eren owed this man his life.

He was just about to thank him when his saviour stepped off the creature and rushed over to the rest of his group and his horse. Eren was now able to see that at the back of the cloak there was some kind of emblem with a symbol in it. The symbol looked like a pair of crossed white and blue wings. The cloak fluttered in the wind as the man ran and honestly rather gave off the impression that he could just spread those wings on his back and fly away on them anytime he wanted. And based on earlier, he probably could.

His serious-faced saviour rode over to him, looking down at him from the back of his horse. “You. Get on.”

“Another Titan approaching from the East!” Someone in the group suddenly yelled. “It looks to be at least five meters!”

“Wha-?” Eren didn’t have time to react better before the man who had saved him grabbed his wrist and practically pulled him up to sit behind him on the horse. Eren awkwardly had to grab on the man’s cloak not to fall back on the ground as he fumbled with his legs, trying to cross one over to the other side. He had even more difficulties with finding a comfortable position and a place to hold on to. He had never ridden a horse before, much less without actually sitting on the saddle.

“Grab my waist. You’ll fall.” The man in front of him said in his deep voice, turning his face halfway to look at Eren from the corner of his eye. “Do it, and keep your mouth shut. That is, if you want to live.”

Eren heard the ominous heavy footsteps approaching, and needed no further prompting, holding onto the man’s waist for dear life as horror started to gather in the pit of his stomach once more.

The black-haired man nodded to the blond-haired one in the lead, who yelled. “We’re going back! Target has been secured!”

The horses began to speed up to run again, Eren still holding the waist of the man in front of him so as not to fall off and fall prey to another one of those monsters. All the while one thought coursed through his head:

_‘What the hell_ was _that thing?!’_


End file.
